In Pursuit of Reason
by Megami.Ze
Summary: Ed struggles to come to terms with the fact that his life has blossomed into something beautiful, and yet for the two people he respects the most... things haven't changed at all. Royai. EdWin.
1. Lost

_A/N: Ok, so, techinically this shouldn't even be posted, but my dear beta _**mebh **_suggested I turn this piece into a _triptych - _that's my new word for the day! For those of you who are like me and don't know what that is, a triptych is: _something of three parts that creates a whole. _So, obviously, this is going to be what I would call a 'threeshot', so except two more 'chapters' to this piece._

_I got this ficlet idea after watching the last episode of Brotherhood/reading the last manga chapter, and I noticed a lot of Royai fans weren't happy with their ending which led me on to thinking... how would someone like Ed feel? And that thought let to this... This is set about five years directly after the Promised Day._

_I hope you enjoy!_

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**In Pursuit of Reason**

_1._

_Lost  
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"Ed!" Winry scolded. She thumped the mixing bowl down onto the counter and reached for the broom in the corner. Ed crouched and began to pick up the glass shards. He held them in his palm.

"Sorry Winry…" he muttered sheepishly.

She knocked the broomstick against his head and frowned disapprovingly.

"And that was my favourite measuring jug, too." She sighed dejectedly. Ed stood up, glass chunks glittering in his hand, and hung his head. Despite being a good head taller than his wife, he was truly under her thumb.

He dropped the glass into the bin as Winry sighed again, although a different emotion was laced in her breath.

"Really Ed… you've been like this all day." She handed over the broom. He stared at it for a long moment before taking it reluctantly.

"Sorry…" Ed murmured. He studied the bristles of the broom. "Not sure what's gotten into me…" He swished the broom across the floor and listened to the tinkling of the glass.

The hardwood flooring still looked new, despite having been in the house over a year. The house itself was a rather new addition to their lives. Ed and Winry had moved into it two years ago, after they had been building it for over a year. It was finished in the early spring, a week after Winry found out she was pregnant. She then knew finally why Ed had insisted so vigorously that their house be on _that _hill next to _that_ tree.

In the early morning Spring light the house looked eerily like his childhood home.

"I know why…" Winry couldn't help the smirk blossoming over her pretty features. She cast a sideways glance at Ed. "You're excited that Miss Riza and Mister Mustang are coming over." She checked the clock on the wall. "Any minute now…"

Ed dropped the broom against the side of the table with a clunk that rattled the cutlery; his face flushed from hairline to jaw in a sunburnt pink.

"I am not _excited_." He hissed the word like it was poison. Winry couldn't contain the sly smile from smothering her lips. She nonchalantly began to mix the syrupy mixture in a large bowl.

"Sure you're not…" she responded, carefully avoiding eye contact. Her smirk seemed permanently stuck to her face. Ed felt more heat rise to his cheeks. She was mocking him!

"Winry!" He cried. Winry laughed softly and rested the bowl against her protruding belly.

She and Ed were expecting their second child together. They were told by May when they had last seen her, which had been two months ago when Al had come to visit, that their baby was going to be a girl. May was certain that she could sense the presence of a female life inside of Winry's body. Winry was secretly overjoyed with the news. She loved her son with all her heart, but she couldn't wait to hold her daughter in her arms.

"Oh, Ed…" she chastised. She set the bowl down on the counter and made her way to her husband. She placed her hands softly on his shoulders and looked up slightly to gaze into his golden eyes. "I'm only teasing," she insisted. She laid the softest of kisses against his lips. Ed responded by trapping her in his arms and holding her close. "You haven't seen him in two years. You're allowed to be excited."

Ed placed his chin on the crown of her head and mulled over her words.

"Two years…" he breathed to himself. Winry smiled tenderly and settled her face against his shoulder and stilled completely; simply enjoying the presence of her husband and their daughter now kicking sporadically in her belly.

She heard a gurgling coo from behind her husband and she drowsily peered around his shoulder. She saw her son sitting on the floor looking interestedly at the glass chunks.

He giggled and got up clumsily before plodding towards the glittering shards.

Winry thrust Ed away from her so harshly that he fell against the corner of the table and the vase on top of it wobbled dangerously. She rushed towards her son and pulled him into her arms. She placed him onto her hip, carefully avoiding her swollen stomach, in one smooth motion, before picking up the broom with one of her hands.

"Ed!" The shout burst from her throat. She began to try and hit her husband with the broomstick. "You left the glass on the floor! Are you a moron!" She made another swipe at his head that instead connected with his forearm that he used to protect himself. "Thomas just learnt how to walk." She made another swipe. "_And you left the glass on the floor_?" She cried incredulously.

"Winry!" Ed protected himself from another hit. "Don't hit me with the broom! You're sending the wrong message to our son!" He tried to reason.

Thomas giggled in delight.

"Jeez!" Winry seethed, but she had stopped her assault with the broom. "Hold Thomas." She commanded as she thrust their son into Ed's hands. She started sweeping up the hazardous glass before Ed could even apologize.

Instead Ed carefully set his son on the ground and sat in front of him. He could at least entertain the child and keep him from being distracted by the shiny dangerous shards. He began to play with his son's tiny toes and grinned appreciatively at his happy laughter.

After a while of focusing on Thomas his thoughts wandered back to where they were originally focused. Winry was sweeping up the last pieces of glass when he asked his question.

"Why do you suppose we never got the invitation to that bastard's wedding?" He asked crossly, still entertaining himself with his son's miniature fingers.

"Language, Ed. Thomas is starting to pick up words now." Thomas made a failed attempt that sounded more like 'bathtub', after which Winry looked at Ed pointedly. She turned her attention back to his question and the glass.

"Maybe it was a quiet ceremony," she offered.

He humphed disapprovingly. "I think they could have afforded for us to be on the guest list." Ed tickled Thomas's nose and he cooed.

"Maybe they didn't get married?" She tried again. She leant against the counter having discarded the last of the glass in the bin.

"As if," he scoffed. "Those two are totally the type to get married. Besides Winry…" He looked over at his wife seriously. "You never saw them…" He left that statement weighing heavily in the air.

His mood brightened when Thomas repeatedly slapped his small hand on his arm. He responded by tickling his son's belly who laughed joyously at the sensation.

A smile crept onto Winry's face. "Really Ed…" She shook her head. "You coddle him too much. Just watch, he's going to get an attention complex."

Edward waved her off with a hand, eyes still glued to his son. His thoughts wondered again as he watched in awe at the miracle that was his son. He looked up at Winry.

"Do you think they have had kids?" He questioned. Winry thought about it for a moment before responding.

"I think that they are probably planning to have kids round about now. Or maybe now they are actively trying."

Ed laughed drily. "Something gives me a feeling that that bastard would always be _actively trying_."

"Ed," she muttered distastefully. She didn't exactly want to talk about Mustang and Miss Riza's sex life; especially when she didn't know them all that well and hadn't seen them in two years.

She watched her husband and son for a few more peaceful moments before she eased her weight off the table and made her way to the counter. "Ed, can you please take these glasses through to the lounge?" She asked, gesturing over to the tray carrying five newly cleaned glasses. She finally came back to her mixing bowl and added the cut apples that she had prepared earlier.

Ed placed his son next to one of his stuffed animals that was sitting near the table and got up to pick up the tray. He stayed by Winry's side. She turned to him and looked at him questioningly.

"I'm excited," he confessed before placing a kiss on her forehead and walking off towards the lounge. She smiled gently before turning back to her syrupy apples and listening to the murmurs of her son.

There were only a few moments of peace before she heard Den barking.

The sound was followed by a cacophony of shattering glasses, a metallic clang and a colourful cluster of swearwords from her husband.

"Ed!" She roared, slamming down the bowl making the apples jump.

"Sorry, Winry!" Came the response from behind the wall. A few seconds later she picked up her son in order to avoid the broken glass and marched over to the lounge where she found her husband cringing over the blanket of glass on the floor.

She prepared to unleash her verbal lashing but was stopped short by the sound of Den's continued barking. Both Winry and Ed looked towards the front door.

"They're here," Ed uttered, almost in horror. Winry knew if he were carrying another tray now he would have dropped it again.

"Must be, Den doesn't bark for no reason." She sighed irritably as she shifted Thomas onto her other hip, which was quite an accomplishment considering how pregnant she was, as he had begun to squirm. "Right. You go outside and greet them. , I'll clean up." She made a beeline for the broom and then placed Thomas on the coffee table. Ed hadn't moved an inch when she came back to the glass.

"_Now, _Ed!"

Ed stumbled into action. He opened the front door and stepped out into the sunlight on the porch.

Immediately he was greeted with the sight of two approaching figures dressed entirely in blue. They stood out crisply against the landscape of Resembool with their blue uniforms and black and blonde hair. The one, who was undoubtedly Mustang, had their blue jacket open and blowing in the wind, displaying a white collared shirt underneath. The other, Hawkeye, was still formally dressed.

Ed found himself waving manically as he stepped off the porch before he could do anything to stop himself. The grin wouldn't unfasten from his face. How embarrassing.

When Mustang and Hawkeye approached Ed close enough so that he could see them in detail, Ed realized how much they _hadn't _changed. It had been two years since he had seen both of them, and yet they still looked exactly how he remembered. And even two years ago they looked the same as they had on the Promised Day.

Mustang's hair was still disheveled and his eyes were still sly and sharp. His shoulders were still fairly broad. Hawkeye seemed to have gotten prettier since Ed had last seen her. Her skin was unblemished and her eyes were the usual heady ochre colour he remembered.

Finally both Mustang and Hawkeye approached the porch, Mustang carrying both of their bags for their weekend stay. He was the first to speak.

"Glad to see you didn't lose those inches you gained, Fullmetal," Mustang quipped, a smirk already settling on his features in that familiar way Ed remembered. It seemed that the nicknames were hard to lose.

"Glad to see you are still a bastard, Colonel," Ed retorted fierily. Yup, the nicknames stuck. Roy couldn't suppress the grin at the familiarity. Riza sighed at both of them before she stepped towards Ed.

"Really sir, you should have seen that coming," she chastised over her shoulder before she turned back to Ed and encompassed him in a warm hug. "It's so good to see you, Edward." The sincerity in her voice suddenly made Ed want to cry. He returned her embrace, appreciating her, and Roy's, presence.

Ed realized that Mustang was about to say something, but before he could they were interrupted.

"Miss Riza! Mister Mustang!" Winry greeted excitedly from the deck of the porch where she stood in all her pregnant glory. She was truly a vision; the sunlight highlighting her light blonde hair; the breeze playing with her hair; and her bumped belly displayed in her strapless blue cotton dress.

Roy whistled. "Looks like you finally did _something _right, Fullmetal." Roy couldn't resist. Ed's temper flared and Winry went bright pink. Ed began to shout obscenities at Roy.

Riza found herself smiling despite the fact that she rolled her eyes as she walked up the steps to Winry.

"You look beautiful, Winry," Riza complimented sincerely. Winry flushed again with embarrassment.

Riza offered her hand to Winry who found herself looking at it before she pushed it away and embraced Riza as hard as she could, considering the swollen stomach between them. Winry couldn't help but feel the sudden burst of joy in her chest. Riza was a woman she had met as a young girl, and had admired fiercely, and now she was an equal to her. She was a _woman_. The same as Riza was.

"As do you." Winry ventured further in her confidence. "Riza."

Hawkeye smiled kindly in response.

Both the women turned their attention back to the two men who were still arguing. Rather, Roy was teasing and Ed was taking it far too seriously.

"Jeez, Ed, can't you keep calm for more than a minute?" Winry's rhetorical question stopped the verbal spar.

"He really still is the Bastard Colonel," Ed mused to Roy in particular. Mustang feigned hurt.

"Ed," Winry warned.

"Yeah, sorry." Defeated, Ed picked up both of Mustang and Hawkeye's bags and began to walk up the steps of the porch. Mustang shared a bemused glance with Hawkeye over the fact that the once spitfire of a youth was completely tamed by his wife.

"And by the way, Ed." Hawkeye took her place beside Mustang as they walked into the house. "I'm not a Colonel anymore. Haven't been for a long time. It's Major General now."

"Major General?" Ed sounded more impressed than he wanted to convey. He placed the bags down by the stairs. "The Lieutenant must be happy; following a man who is one step away from becoming Fuhrer."

"Actually, she's not a Lieutenant anymore either. She was promoted to Captain when I was promoted to Major General." His glance at Hawkeye was on the verge of adoration. "Whether she is happy or not, you'll have to ask her yourself." Riza remained quiet, partially out of embarrassment.

"I still don't see how anyone can be happy working under you," Ed joked. Winry elbowed him in the side.

"You'd be surprised, Edward," Hawkeye responded. Ed rubbed his ribs as he thought it through. He supposed she was right; Mustang's men didn't seem like they were unhappy working under their commander. In fact they seemed willing to sacrifice a lot just to stay with him.

"Lounge's this way." Ed indicated to the open archway with his hand for his guests to follow him.

"So, what happened to the old team?" Ed asked after they had barely sat down. He was eager to ask all of the questions that had been eating away at him for the past few years.

Mustang and Hawkeye had been settling themselves on the loveseat, beginning to remove their military jackets. Riza was distracted by Ed's question.

"Havoc got married," she revealed. "And if I'm not mistaken." She looked at Mustang for confirmation. "He just found out that he and his wife are expecting a son." Mustang nodded lazily.

"Found out last week," he verified. Winry smiled at the news. It was such a clear reminder of the morning she had found out that she was going to have Thomas. She found that her hand had absently moved on top of her swollen belly. It was also a lovely reminder of the day she found out that she was pregnant again.

"Well… how about that…" Ed said brightly. "And he always said he had bad luck with women…" Ed could just picture Havoc now; the dusty blond hair; the cigarette hanging from his lips. His….

Ed straightened up. "And what about—?"

"He can walk, Edward," Riza assured him gently. Although, earlier in the day, she and Roy had decided that it was in Ed's best interest not to mention the fact that Havoc now walked with the aid of a cane – when walking became painful.

But he could walk.

Winry stood up with a little difficulty. Her mood had brightened considerably because of all great news. She made a move towards the kitchen.

"Do you two want anything to drink? Tea?" She offered.

Roy looked at Riza, and as if he read her mind asked Winry, "Do you have something colder?"

"Something colder, gotcha." She disappeared around the around the corner and into the kitchen. Ed turned his attention back to his former commander and his aide.

"What about the other three?" Ed asked with genuine curiosity.

"Breda got promoted to First Lieutenant and is currently stationed in the South near Aerugo for my diplomatic relation needs. Falman is still stationed up North. And Fuery—" He paused. "I believe he just got engaged…" Mustang looked at Hawkeye skeptically who in turn nodded.

"Due to be married in Autumn," she confirmed to Mustang. Ed's smile brightened.

"And what about Major Armstrong?" He could barely contain his excitement with finding out all this new information.

"He transferred up North to work with his sister," Mustang replied. "Major General Armstrong must have seen a side of her brother during the Promised Day that made her actually accept working in the same environment as the Major," Mustang half joked. Hawkeye, now free from questioning, continued to unbutton her jacket.

"Wow," Ed sighed as he sat back in his sofa. "So much has changed in the last five years."

Hawkeye removed her jacket and laid it out on the armrest. She was still wearing the tight black short-sleeved turtleneck under her military jacket. Except it was stuck to her because of the heat, displaying her substantial bust, and riding down the one side of her neck, showing off her alabaster skin—

Ed saw the scar that sliced along the side of her neck and the corner of her throat. Ed wasn't sure why he thought that the fatal cut would heal and barely leave a mark. It had healed well, but that didn't make it look any less ugly. It didn't sit well on the kind Lieutenant he knew, nor did the image sit well in his stomach.

Ed realized he wasn't the only one staring.

Mustang's eyes were trapped on the marbled scar tissue as well.

There was an excruciating weighing silence that followed. Mustang was absolutely, rigidly still; eyes unmoving. Riza quickly became aware where everyone's eyes were. Self-consciously her fingers flinched up to cover the scar.

Her burdened eyes met Mustang's for the briefest moment.

Simultaneously they looked away and down at the seat cushions.

Ed sat immobile, winded by what he had just witnessed. He didn't know how to comprehend it. The look in Mustang's eyes was so tormented and Hawkeye's was so remorseful... An entire conversation, an entire _understanding _had just flared between them. And for the life of him, Ed couldn't grasp it.

Ed sombrely apprehended how truly awful that scar must have been for the both of them. It was something that couldn't be removed or forgotten. It was an endless reminder of the moment Riza Hawkeye was expected to die, with all the blood and the horror, and with no way to save her.

It must be hard on the relationship, Ed knew. It would be something that Mustang would have to see every single day and be reminded of how life could be without her. And Riza would have to know that she brought that emotional burden on him.

But Ed appreciated that he did not fully understand.

Ed was beyond thankful to Winry as she waddled back into the lounge, beautifully content and blissfully unaware with the drinks that had been long forgotten. Ed found himself craving the enchanting smile of his wife and their _simplicity_.

"Here's your 'something cold'." Winry slid the tray of drinks across the coffee table. "Presented in fresh new glasses, because Ed broke the last set." She shot a glare at her husband who pouted gloomily. Both Hawkeye and Mustang tried to smile.

Winry yelped suddenly, and crouched over slightly, placing a hand at her stomach. Mustang and Hawkeye looked at her in alarm and Ed was already getting up to fuss over her. She waved him off with a hand.

"I'm fine Ed." She let out a steady deep breath. "She's a kicker," Winry explained and smiled reassuringly.

Ed and Mustang relaxed significantly and Riza took the distraction as an opportunity to change the topic.

"How many months?" She inquired.

"Three more to go," she revealed dreamily, a hand placed on her belly to try and subdue the kicking baby.

"That's wonderful, Winry," Riza responded genuinely. "You must be pleased, too, Edward."

Ed looked like a deer caught in the headlights. His cheeks filled with a pink tint and he avoided all contact. "Well... yeah..." he stuttered.

Roy snickered. "He acts like he didn't even know how he did it." Ed's face went aflame.

"Sir," Hawkeye reprimanded.

Mustang stifled a few more laughs before he asked the couple, "Don't you have a son?"

"Oh, yes." Winry finally sat down next to her husband. "But he's probably sleeping right now. I put him in his crib before you came. He looked a little drowsy." Ed put an arm around her. "You'll get to see him before dinner," she assured.

Conversation continued pleasantly for a good half hour. They talked about the many things that had changed in the country over the last five years and speculated over the family life of Havoc and Fuery, the relationship between Lan Fan and Ling and even began to pick out baby names for Ed and Winry's daughter.

"Delancey!" Ed piped up suddenly.

"No, Ed," Winry replied sternly. Her voice could have chipped stone.

Ed looked considerably deflated. Winry turned to Mustang and Hawkeye. "Ed found the baby name book yesterday," she explained, deadpan.

Riza was too distracted by how hot she felt to respond. She pinched her shirt and batted it against her chest in an attempt to cool herself down.

"Oh yeah," Ed piped up, eager to change the topic. "We should probably show you your room; you can change your clothes in there," Ed said, noticing Riza's actions.

Riza nodded. "Thanks." She and Mustang stood up from the couch together and waited for Ed to help his wife up.

Ed led them into the hallway, Winry trailing behind.

"Your room is up the stairs, first door on the right. There's a bathroom opposite your room; Winry and I have a master bathroom."

"Thank you, Edward." Hawkeye reached for her suitcase, but Mustang had already picked both of the bags up. He began to climb the stairs—

"Oh yeah, and please keep any loud noises you make at night to yourselves." He looked pointedly at Mustang. "Winry is six months pregnant. She doesn't need to be kept up all night."

"Ed!" Winry cried, aghast.

The silence that followed was absolutely suffocating. Ed's gut clenched and the grin that was meant to be light hearted and jovial was stuck on his face like it had frozen there. Ed found himself looking at Mustang, halfway up the stairs, waiting for the devilish smirk and witty remarks to fall from his lips. He waited for the embarrassed aversion of eye contact and the frown of annoyance from the former Lieutenant.

Above all else he was waiting for the unsettled, and possibly flirtatious, glance between them.

Then, like clockwork, the unsettled look he had been waiting for was shared between the two, and it was everything but what he wanted.

Ed's plastered grin fractured and sunk like pebbles in a well, and Winry had stiffened up beside him.

"No way…" The words had slipped out of his mind and from his lips.

Roy looked at Ed steadily. He would face this like everything else he had faced over the years. Although this… was something he had hoped never to explore; especially not with someone like Fullmetal.

"Edward." Hawkeye's tone was weighed down, rational. Like the Lieutenant he knew.

"No way!" Ed cried defiantly.

"Fullmetal," Mustang tried tersely. The title seemed so appropriate at this moment. Ed was like the fifteen year old boy Mustang remembered; eyes alight with defiance; words loud and determined. Taking everything to heart….

"—Stop screwing around!"

The silence that followed only amplified his words. Winry placed a gentle hand against Ed's arm.

It amazed her that both of these two, this unmistakable _pair, _could stare at them both in the eye; facing this situation, with a morbid look on their features that made Winry's heart ache for reasons she couldn't quite grasp.

Ed realized that his chest was heaving when Mustang spoke again.

"Ed…" His words were soft yet firm. "We—" His lips stayed still, and his bravado began to crumble. The absence of words made it so much more painful.

Riza looked up to Roy, with the same look in her eyes that he had. Winry saw the secret exchange of glances that happened in the briefest of seconds. And she couldn't wash out the feeling that she was witnessing things she shouldn't be privy to.

"We— We—" He couldn't grasp the words. "The Captain and I... aren't like that," Roy said slowly, carefully. Even he didn't believe his own words. He looked away shamefully. "We aren't…"

His excuses were dying.

"Stop bullshitting me!" Ed yelled. Winry's hand pressed against his bicep.

"Stop, Ed," she whispered.

He shook her hand off violently, more vigorously than he ever would, and faced the former colonel ferociously. Hawkeye took a step forward; her instincts kicking into gear. She had vowed many years ago that she would do whatever she could to keep that expression off of his face; she never wanted to see him suffering from any pain ever again.

"Edward—"

It was all futile.

"—you _do _love her, don't you?" He threw out indignantly.

She froze solid, completely. Mustang's hand had tightened around the banister.

"Ed, you seriously have to stop," Winry pleaded softly, gently, to her husband. She weakly tugged at his shirt, trying to reel him back in. He was too tangled up in a life that was far from his.

Ed looked on with bated breath as Roy watched him intently. He couldn't read the onyx black eyes. Hawkeye had taken a few steps back, distancing herself now that they were in far too personal territory. She closed her eyes.

Then Ed heard him _laugh_.

The laugh was not joyous, light or amused. The laugh was so rueful and filled with such regret that Ed felt Winry's hand tighten a fraction more into his shirt.

"Trust you to make it sound so _simple_, Fullmetal." The smile was so fake, and it rested on Ed like a weight.

And then Mustang left him, calling to his captain and, together, they walked wordlessly, and without a single glance, up the remainder of the stairs. Ed couldn't push down the overwhelming feeling that he was just that fifteen year old boy again; crossing into territory he didn't belong; so painfully, and _frustratingly_ naïve in the grander scheme of the world.

And what hurt the most was the ghost of a hand at the small of Riza's back, as they disappeared out of view.

x

Winry had never been good at damage control, especially when it came to Ed.

Ed was so temperamental. He was like a raging storm; a storm churning under his skin. His eyes held a fierce electricity that defied and challenged everything and anything to come across his path. And Winry was the same. She knew that she, too, was just as temperamental. Al had even affectionately called her a firecracker with a wrench and May had told her that she envied her fighting spirit.

Maybe that was why she never knew what to do when Ed was upset.

Ed was sprawled across their bed, arm flung over his eyes. His lips were a harsh thin line.

Winry closed their bedroom door gently and shuffled towards him. She leaned carefully on the edge of the bed and watched her husband carefully.

He said nothing, but she knew that he knew she was there.

"Ed…" she tried to coax him to talk.

"I don't want to talk about it, Winry," he ground out. His voice was sharper than usual. Winry huffed; pregnancy had thinned out her patience and she would have none of his secrecy.

"Ed," she goaded testily. He was still refusing to look at her, or even move. Was he going to blatantly ignore her? She would have none of that. "Stop—" She tugged his arm away from his face forcefully. "—being so—"

His eyes were sharper than she expected; the gold hue in them heavier than she was anticipating. His eyes locked with hers instantly and his lips thinned out even further. Winry felt her stomach drop.

She placed his arm down neatly on the bed. "You're really upset…" she murmured in quiet disbelief.

Ed frowned deeply and turned on his side, away from his wife. Hiding his eyes.

She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder which he shrugged off immediately. She flinched at his harsh actions and rested her hand in her lap as if it had been burned by his hurt. She nibbled her bottom lip in anxious thought.

As awkward and as unsure as she felt, she would be damned if she let him sulk up in their bedroom, alone.

"Please, Ed." She spoke quietly as not to upset or aggravate him. "Talk to me?" She rested her hand on his shoulder again, tentatively, feather-light.

He remained still for a heavy moment before he rolled over onto his back and sacrificed himself to her imploring blue eyes. His hand caught hers and he ran his thumb across her knuckle; an apology.

He looked at his wife, taking in everything about her; appreciating her soft features, long hair, beautiful skin. He took a breath, preparing to render himself vulnerable, something he struggled to do.

"They should be married."

The words slipped through his lips and froze the air as if they were ice. Ed's thumb caressed Winry's ring finger; consciously or absent mindedly, she didn't know.

He tried again, "They should be married; having children. Hawkeye is the one—" His eyes drifted to her abdomen. "— who should be pregnant. She should be having his _damn _children. He should be smug." the words were rattling now. "He should be rubbing it in my face that he had children first and when am I going to settle down with that cute mechanic girl in that silly village. He should be _flaunting _her like the arrogant _prick _that he is. He should—" Ed's voice caught.

Ed closed his eyes, ashamed of his forming tears.

"_They _should be married." He pushed his fingers into his eyes, shying away from his wife's upset gaze, pushing back his overflowing emotions as best he could. He failed.

He choked, "That damn _bastard_."

x

Riza doesn't know who she is.

She hasn't known who, exactly, she is since she was a young girl, with those big brown earthy eyes and short wispy straw-coloured hair. Then, she was a young girl eager to distance herself from her father's alchemy and leap into the unknown world to learn and experience.

Riza doesn't know who she is after she meets Mister Roy Mustang.

Her world, she realizes, became inverted. She had longed for a world away from her father and full of an exciting new world. Roy Mustang appears in open cracks of the door in her father's study and the light under the door in the spare bedroom, and then, suddenly, her father is dead, she is alone, and she cares nothing for a world she had wanted to explore.

She simply wants to live in Roy Mustang's world.

So when he leaves, she feels devastatingly alone. Like she is absent from something _huge_. She feels like her existance has changed ever since meeting that charming, charismatic alchemist.

So, she follows him, to be a part of his world that he wants to create and live in, the world he hasintimately shared with her. And somewhere through the months, she forgets who she is because now it's only Ishval, Amestris and Major Roy Mustang.

She still likes the same things, she still has the same sense of wit and taste. But she doesn't know who Riza Hawkeye is anymore.

She is First Lieutenant Hawkeye.

That is why, as she leaned against the rough mahogany wood of the closed door, hands splayed behind her, she is engulfed with churning emotions she cannot make sense of. Edward's sparking eyes are smoldering in her mind's eye. He had been so upset.

She suddenly felt detachment leaking into her mind; her thoughts a malicious unending stream.

The General sat, legs crossed, on the only bed in the room; his hand smothering his mouth, holding his chin. His eyes were closed. Hawkeye didn't need to see them to know that they would be the opposite's of Edward's; instead of sparking defiance and anger; consumed, lost and conflicted.

Hawkeye closed her eyes as well, because maybe it would help, and she rested her head against the wood. The deep breaths she took didn't seem to be quelling the indescribable feelings in her chest. She couldn't place it. She was deeply aware of her and Roy. Her thoughts simmered behind the surface constantly, not a crush or infatuation or love worthy of a teenager, but simply – _yet far too intensely _– his importance.

"I'm sorry." Hawkeye opened her eyes and kept her body postured as she turned to look at her General. Something in the pit of her stomach unsettled her far more than it should have.

He shouldn't be apologizing (_she stopped asking herself what for, because she already knew_). He shouldn't have that overshadowing look in his eyes, as if his sight really had been taken on that day. He shouldn't be apologizing…

They didn't talk about _this_.

Hawkeye swallowed the aching lump in her throat. "There's nothing to apologize for, sir," she promised calmly. She tightened up her back and stood up straight, picking up both suitcase handles in one hand.

He looked at her as if he didn't know what to say.

She walked to him, at the edge of the bed, like the steady soldier she was, and she rested the suitcases, one behind the other in front of his feet. The tags lay next to each other neatly and her eyes were drawn to them and trapped in their certainty.

The names, one on each label, in neat, bold, permanent print:

Roy Mustang. Riza Hawkeye.

She realized she was staring when his hand shifted and lay on top of hers. He had been engrossed in the names, too. His hand rested on hers for only a mere moment, but long enough for her to feel aware of the implications and underlying meanings, before he took the handle of his suitcase and pulled his carrier, and his name, away from hers.

Her impulse had her suitcase up on the bed, open, and words emerging from her lips before she noticed.

"I need to change, sir." It mystified her that he still needed to leave the room when she wanted to change clothes. They had been through too much together. What was something as trivial as nudity to them?

"Of course, Hawkeye." He had taken to calling her by her last name ever since she was promoted. Her rank, Captain, felt foreign in his mouth. And it had hit him, painfully, how her old rank had become the substitute for her name. How it had become _intimate_.

It had become intimate when it was the only thing he could scream as he watched her bleed to death.

He left the room and Riza watched as he closed the door between them.

"I'm sorry."

And the apology sounded too much like the first.

* * *

_Hold me now._

_Nothing else matters.  
_

_

* * *

Lyrics will make sense at the end, taken from: _"Not Giving Up on Love"_ by Armin Van Buuren, Sophie Ellis Bextor  
_


	2. Broken

_A/N: I feel like a choir of angels should be singing, or something. Not because it's 'that good' or anything... mostly because I actually finished and published this thing!_

_Once again, I worship _**mebh**_ who has been my wonderful beta and comrade in arms for the duration of this fic. And she was a slave driver, but hey, it get's results._

_I feel like I should give a warning for the amount of EdWin that's in here. Hmm... Oh well. Enjoy!_

_

* * *

_

**In Pursuit of Reason**

_2._

_Broken_

_

* * *

_

The weight sat in his stomach.

He treaded, hands in pockets, down Ed and Winry's stairs, studying each step as he did so. The wood creaked under each footfall.

He wasn't sure what exactly to feel. Guilt seemed to smother every inch of the cage of his chest, and he wondered why. Surely Ed had no right to interfere with his business? It was his own life, and he chose what he wanted to do with it, what he _intended_ to do with it.

Mustang carefully extracted his hand out of his pocket, slipping off the white glove as he did so. He looked at the back of his hand; studied the scar of the array he had carved into it all those years ago; the scar had muted and blurred but it was still ever-present.

He turned his palm over and was confronted with the second scar to mar his hand. The Promised Day: those five, long, years ago.

His fist clenched shut at the overflow of emotions.

This was exactly the problem.

It didn't feel all that long ago.

He could still acutely remember that day: before the dawn, standing at Hughes's grave; leading his team through Central; wading his way through the underground; burning Envy to within an inch of his godforsaken life (_in secret,_ _still feeling that white-hot hatred searing under his flesh_); the _fear _at seeing Fullmetal disappear right before his very eyes; and then Hawkeye—

_The Lieutenant..._

Roy crumpled, deflating with each breath, onto the bench in the small, open hallway. His eyes never left his hand as he opened up his palm again and looked at the thin, clinical line.

(_thinking of another line, but more jagged and horrifying, pumping blood and extinguishing life.._.)

Sometimes, in his dreams (_but not the _worst _ones_) he could still see the blood soaked into his hands. Sometimes, not even in dreams, he could still feel that blood.

It had nothing to do with his own scars.

The sound of clumsy footfalls filtered into his head and immediately he placed his palm into his lap and forced the smile onto his face again.

Winry emerged from the stairs carrying her squirming, blond, infant son.

"Hold still—" she scolded. Mustang cringed as Thomas's foot barely missed his mother's pregnant stomach. "Thomas—"

"Need help?" Mustang interjected.

Winry's eyes darted to him. "Oh, Roy—" She grappled with her son. "—sorry, I didn't see you there." Her eyes fell back to Thomas and she wasn't sure why she couldn't look Roy in the eye. It's not like she was the one who confronted the pair.

"It's no problem." Why were things so awkward, Roy wondered. "So, this must be your son?" He offered out his hands to hold Thomas. Winry looked at them, eyes flitting, and weakening, over the scars.

"Oh, I couldn't expect you to hold Thomas when he's fussing like this." As if to prove a point Thomas kicked again. Winry angled him onto her hip.

In order to avoid an awkward silence, Mustang joked, "Looks like the sibling rivalry is starting early." He gestured to another wild kick that Thomas delivered to Winry's hipbone, a few frightful inches close to what was probably his sister's small head.

Winry sighed deeply. "It makes me afraid of the future." Her son whined quietly and Winry bounced him on her hip and shushed him. "He's not always like this. He's probably just hungry—"

Horror descended over Winry's face. "Oh no, I completely forgot about dinner!" Her one hand tugged on her hair in frustration. Thomas mimicked this action with vigor. "I was too busy setting up!"

"I could help you," Mustang offered.

Winry waved him off as if she was batting away a bird. "I couldn't possibly ask that of you! You're a guest!" She bit her lower lip in a moment of silence. Her eyes darted to the kitchen doorway. "I'll just leave him here!"

Even though she was in a mad rush, Winry placed her son down gently on the bench next to Mustang. As soon as Thomas was out of her hands, she walked quickly to the kitchen.

Winry assured over her shoulder, "You only have to look after him for five minutes. I promise!"

Roy waved her off with a hand but she was already behind the wall. "It's not a problem," he called after her.

Mustang laid his arm across the back of the bench and looked down at the small boy sitting next to him. Miraculously Thomas didn't begin to cry. Instead he looked up at the onyx haired man beside him in awe; his little mouth hanging open. He studied the new person with intense interest.

Roy was bewitched.

This was Fullmetal's kid. He was a small Edward and Winry. Their love had made this small human being; the small fingers; tiny toes. They had a _child_.

Carefully Roy dropped his arm from the back of the bench, and tentatively he reached his hand out to the small child. Thomas looked at the large hand with confusion, seemingly trying to make sense of the new object before him, his small eyebrows crinkling.

And then, robustly, Tomas grabbed hold of one of Roy's fingers and giggled brightly; his two miniature pearly teeth flashing in his big smile.

Roy's breath caught with all the violence of a bullet.

His eyes were locked on the small fist around his finger; they drifted to his hand, full of scars and burns; hands that were soiled with blood; hands that had ended the life of men, women, _children_. Burned them alive. This innocent child's hand should be burning, hurting, dirtied from just _touching _him.

Yet this child shook his finger joyously.

"Something you want to tell me, sir?"

Mustang's eyes broke away and turned to his former Lieutenant who stood before him; eyes gentle.

"Hawkeye..."

She took in the sight: her General, dark hair wild, and still in uniform, sitting next to a small child who held onto his fingers with vigour. (_His hair was the exact same colour as hers but the blue eyes destroyed the oh-so-_beautiful_ picture_)

Riza looked at Roy with heavy eyes. (_because her eyes would always match his_) He looked frightened. He looked scared. His hand, the one captured by the small child, was trembling.

She could save him.

"It looks like he quite likes you, sir." She wished she sounded happier.

Roy swallowed deeply. "Indeed he does..." His eyes were threatening to be caught on the sight of the golden blonde-haired boy again. "He's got quite a grip." Mustang moved his finger to demonstrate Thomas's firm hold on the appendage.

A laugh bubbled out of Thomas's throat.

Riza's eyes brightened at the smile that was blossoming on Roy's face.

Mustang tried to take back his hand, but Thomas stubbornly yanked on the digit and Riza laughed at the look of confused alarm that washed over Roy's face.

"Would you like me intervene, General?" She asked warmly. Roy shifted.

"Please."

Hawkeye moved towards the two and leaned over gently to pry the small hand off of Mustang's two fingers. She succeeded momentarily before the miniature fingers curled into the middle of her cotton shirt.

Riza stopped to a sudden halt and slowly looked down at the tiny fist in her blouse. Thomas looked up at her with large blue eyes and implored her. Roy had stilled completely beside her as he watched Thomas reach out his second arm.

"I think he wants you to hold him," he murmured softly.

Riza's eyes widened and she looked to Roy. His eyes seemed to quiver. He kept her gaze and offered her no words of reassurance. He seemed just as uncertain as she was.

Slowly, unsurely, Riza turned back to the infant. Thomas looked up at her expectantly. Carefully Hawkeye placed her hands over the child's tiny ribcage and took a deep, steadying breath before lifting him up.

She stumbled immediately once she hoisted him up to her own chest, holding him away.

"He's heavy," Hawkeye muttered in wonder. She held the small boy away from herself and studied him. Thomas studied her with a look that was both displeased and confused. Hawkeye swallowed through her dry mouth and looked over to Roy again, feeling cold sweat prickling against her skin.

Roy wasn't sure what to say. "Try putting one of your arms under him and hold him against your — uh, chest."

Hawkeye did as she was instructed and carefully held Thomas against her chest, securing his weight on her arm, and then, immediately, the boy laid his head against her breast. Riza's body tingled with goosebumps. She didn't know what to do with her hand that was part of the arm securing Thomas to her chest. Her fingers flitted between his tiny fleshy back and the wisps of his soft hair at the nape of his neck.

Her heart skipped a beat when she felt the small warm breath wash against her collarbone.

Her eyes lit up with triumph and a maternal glow Roy knew she wasn't aware she possessed. He felt like a fool for smiling the way he was.

She was so beautiful. She looked down between the small child with both wonder and uncertainty, as if he would break, and back to Roy, sharing a feat with him that should be common and mundane, but to her (_to them_) it was so special. He watched her eyes dance ever so gently and silently, and Thomas's deep blue eyes locked on his.

And suddenly he was assaulted with the image of not a blonde-haired, blue eyed boy being held against Hawkeye's chest, but an infant with soft hair the colour of pitch and ochre eyes.

A jolt shot through his body and ended in his heart.

"How did you know what to do?" Riza asked in awe, eyes still stuck on the infant that she was attempting to bounce in her arms.

"Elysia—" His voice choked. "— I — watched Hughes hold her when she was a — baby."

Hawkeye's eyes immediately dropped from Thomas and back to her commander at the very sound of his shaky voice.

She could feel her body growing cold and the chill set in as she saw what was consuming his eyes before he hid them behind his hands. In her unique way, she had seen a horrible and terrible grief welling up in his eyes like tears.

The baby gurgled but she barely heard it.

"Sir..."

His elbows rested on his knees and he didn't lift his face from his hands. His breathing through his nose was heavy. Calming breaths.

"Sir—"

"—I'm so sorry Roy, but I need you to look after Thomas a—" Winry halted her march as she realized, too late, that she was intruding on something.

It was painted before her like a morose and heart wrenching picture. Riza was holding her son, far too awkwardly to be mistaken for a mother, and her body faced Roy's like that was its default action. Roy's eyes were wide and his face barely out of his hands. Riza's gaze fell on Winry's and it was heavier than any automail Winry knew.

Winry felt her heart throb and she remained still, looking at the commander and his aide equally in both shock and rising, shamed awkwardness. She only knew one thing to do.

"Oh! I'm sorry, but Roy I need you to look after Thomas for a while longer. Dinner will take longer than I thought." She was used to be left out of these like this; hard and inexpressible. She knew exactly how to pretend.

Muscles seized, Roy was frozen at having been caught. Hawkeye turned to look at him steadily, coaxing him back into life with her amber eyes.

"Sure... Winry..." He was surprised he didn't choke on his words.

Hawkeye could almost feel her eyes dulling as she looked down at the floor, her mouth twisting into a rueful smile.

She wanted Roy's pain to go away. She would do anything to accomplish that. Even if that meant removing herself from his side when he needed her most.

"Let me help you, Winry." Her kind smile was plastered perfectly in place. Something she had learned from Roy over the years. "I'm sure the General can look after Thomas by himself."

Winry glanced between Riza and the barely concealed shock on Roy's face. Somehow, and she didn't know exactly how, Winry understood what Riza was asking of her.

"Some help would be great." Winry liked to cook on her own, but she would lie for Riza's sake.

Winry waited for Riza to put down Thomas (_horribly avoiding any contact_) next to Roy and escorted her to the kitchen, trying to ignore the burning inky eyes burrowing into her back.

And when they were alone, Winry made sure to talk about nonsensical things and avoid any words of marriage and children.

x

Miraculously the conversation that drifted through dinner was going smoothly. There were no awkward lulls and Thomas was behaving in his high chair.

Ed had made sure to repair any damage he had caused a few hours earlier.

He had entered the dining room, greeted with the sight of Mustang playing with his son and Hawkeye setting the table. Edward was intimately aware how his son had warmed up to Mustang, and how Roy had in turn warmed up to Thomas. Thomas had already presented Roy with his favourite building blocks and Mustang was helping build a small house. Ed couldn't ignore the small soft smile on Roy's face either.

He hid it with teasing; teasing that Mustang was still in uniform.

He listened to Winry; this wasn't his life, he was in no place to interfere. He told that to himself over and over when he had cast his glance over to Riza, who was setting the table, and commented on how he had barely ever seen Mustang out of uniform. He told himself over and over when the softest of expressions flitted across her face, under the mask of a soldier, at the sight of her commander trying to unfasten the infant's grip from his waist cape.

Ed would keep his emotions to himself. It wasn't his business. He would show them that his outburst was sudden and he had already gotten over it.

It still boiled underneath, but he would keep it hidden.

"By the way, Ed, how is Al doing?" Mustang asked after he devoured his last potato.

"Well." Ed swallowed his food. "He's still back East, in Xing. He is finishing up his studies there." Ed spooned mashed peas into his son's mouth. "Oh, and he's meeting May's parents, and the rest of her clan."

"May?" Hawkeye questioned.

Mustang turned to his aide. "Yeah, didn't I tell you? May is Al's girlfriend." Riza shook her head. Roy turned back to Ed. "How are they doing anyway?"

"Surprisingly well, actually." Ed fussed over Thomas's mouth with his bib. "They're doing a lot better than they were doing a few years back."

"Why? Did something happen?" Riza asked.

"It's not so much what anyone did, it was just the circumstances," Winry explained. "They got together soon after Ed and Al came back to Risembool. At that time Al was fifteen and, well, May was thirteen. You can imagine how the circumstances were when Al turned eighteen and his girlfriend was only fifteen. They were under a lot of social pressure."

"Her parents mustn't have been too happy," Riza observed.

Winry shook her head. "They weren't. They almost broke up because of it. Al was a wreck at the time."

"Somehow they managed to stay together, and now everything's settled down. Al just turned twenty, and May's seventeen. Her clan has less of a problem with their relationship now."

"I'm happy to hear it. Al deserves to have a nice woman; he deserves to be happy."

"He _was_ a tin can for over five years," Roy quipped in response. Riza sighed and Ed scowled.

The flash of flesh that was Roy's hand darted in the corner of Ed's eye and he looked down at his naked hand and remembered suddenly.

A grin blossomed onto his face. "So, Mustang, what's it like to do alchemy like one of the greats?" Roy looked up from his food. "What did you call it again? Oh yeah, 'damn clappy alchemy'."

Roy chuckled under his breath. "I can assure you, Fullmetal, if you still had your alchemy I could beat it out of you."

"Oh, really?" Ed challenged.

"Oh jeez, here we go." Winry dropped her face into her open palm.

"It's just like old times," Hawkeye replied with a small smile as she looked on at the bickering men.

"Then let's see a little of this 'all powerful alchemy', Mustang." Ed humoured him. Roy smirked and scanned the table.

"If you insist." His dark eyes glinted when he saw the open flame sitting atop the waxy candle on the dinner table.

His eyes soaked in the tiny flickering flame and he carefully placed his hand in front of it as if he were trying to warm them. Then he clapped them together and the tell tale chime of alchemic transmutation flitted across the table.

When he opened his hands the small flame on top of the candle sprang to life, tripled in size and wobbled unsteadily until it morphed into an intricate form; a miniature phoenix.

The phoenix's fire wings flickered as Roy made it cross the threshold of its waxy perch and paraded it in front of Riza. He then moved it across the table to greet Thomas.

Thomas giggled at the sight; his dark blue eyes glittering with the firelight. He cooed at the swirling flame suspended in the air as the small phoenix flapped it's perfectly formed fiery wings. Winry gasped in delight as the phoenix did a little somersault. Thomas laughed at the small bird, marvelling at the flickering of its tail.

Then he grasped at the fire.

Roy's eyes widened and the phoenix swerved backwards violently. The flame wobbled in the air, and was still for a fraction of a second before it exploded into a burst of fire.

The fire roared across the wood and licked Riza's fingers that were splayed across the table, and flared out in front of Thomas and then, just as quickly as it appeared, closed in on itself and vanished. Riza jerked her fingers back quickly and enclosed them in her other hand.

There was a weighing moment of silence as Roy's hands remained open in front of the candle, his eyes wide and horrified where they were glued to Thomas. Winry's mouth was hidden by her hands and Ed's eyes were swimming and his body rigid.

Thomas's cries shattered the silence and everything descended into chaos.

"Shit, Mustang!" Ed swore as he dragged Thomas's high chair away from Mustang, as if he would try to burn his son again.

"I still haven't got used to sustaining fire for that long," Roy tried to explain.

"Well then you shouldn't have done it! You almost caught Thomas in your little magic trick!" Fear consumed Ed's chest and smothered his reasoning as he stood up and pulled Thomas out of his high chair and held the crying infant against his chest. Anger washed over him in waves and it was all but apparent that he was about to combust.

Riza intervened by instinct. "Edward, calm down, it was an accident. Nobody got hurt—"

"Bullshit!" Ed roared. His one arm gestured madly to Riza's hand that was now in view. "He hurt _you_. He used his little fucking fire bird and burnt you! He could have burnt Thomas, too!"

Roy's eyes grew wider and _horrible _as they snapped to Riza's fingers that she quickly hid in her other hand from view. His eyes caught hers and sunk in horror. She had to look away.

"Give me Thomas." Winry's voice was like stone as she wrenched her son out of Ed's arms.

Riza's eyes quivered. "He's sorry, Edward..."

Ed reared towards Mustang's frozen form. His previous anger at all the injustice he had seen that day was bleeding into his fear and turning into a dangerous and blinding rage. "No! Now you look here! You could have burnt my son with that! You burnt Riza with that! Doesn't that _concern _you!"

"Ed, seriously, stop." Winry's face was taught and her eyes sharp.

Ed could barely hear Winry. His chest was swirling with a maelstrom of emotions he didn't understand. He just wanted a _reaction_. The bastard was far too damn impassive. He thought that Riza was the key to his emotions, but still he remained silent and frozen like always!

"Doesn't that worry you! _You burned her with that thing_!" He shouted so loudly that Thomas began to cry anew. The sound of his son's cries added further fuel to the uncontrollable fire in his chest.

"Shut up," Roy growled, the words falling out of his lips in a snarl that everyone could understand but Ed. His eyes were like lightning.

"—or do you really care that _little_—"

Mustang's fist collided with Ed's jaw with a sickening fleshy crack. Ed's head snapped back violently. He stared at the floor in a state of numb shock. He tasted blood. The marks where Mustang's knuckles had connected with his mouth stung like an insult.

As the pain blossomed in Roy's fingers, consciousness ebbed back into his mind and brought with it only horror. He had hit _Fullmetal_—

Ed reared back, eyes bright with fury and triumph, and his knuckles sunk into Roy's cheekbone, clipping his jaw. His head wrenched to the side, hair flying over his features. His head pounded so badly he could barely think.

"Don't think I won't fight back." Ed spat with such ferocity that Winry's gut clenched with fright. "Go on, Mustang, _hit me_." Ed could see no one else. He could not see his infant son who continued to cry at the violent display his father was showing. He could not see his wife who watched him with frightened eyes and he could not see the former Lieutenant, his friend, frozen still, like the calm before a storm. He didn't expect what he was about to witness.

"Try and punch me!" Mustang remained still, body still angled to the floor; looking so small. "What's stopping you!" Mustang didn't move a muscle.

Ed saw red.

His hand ripped at Mustang's collar and lifted him so high his feet were almost off the ground. Ed's fist shook in the fabric.

"Do something!" He snarled. "You—"

Ed was interrupted with the quietest and heaviest of words. Mustang's head rolled back, his dark hair hiding his eyes and his lips falling open to speak; his voice only a rasp.

"Go on, Ed. Do it."

Ed's breath weighed heavy in his lungs.

"I deserve it."

"You—!"

A hand sunk into the flesh of Ed's forearm, clawing at his skin with a bone cracking grip. Ed's focus ripped to Hawkeye.

"Drop him!" Her whole manner was fear personified. Ed stared in shock at the woman before him who couldn't possibly be the Riza he knew. Her arms were shaking and her eyes were cloudy and he knew instantly that she couldn't see him anymore.

All she could see was blood-stained desert, corpses, death. All she could hear was the crying of children in the echo of his son's wails. And her General was lost in all of it.

Her eyes were like an inferno.

"_I said drop him now!_" Her voice was torn with hysteria.

Ed's heart was thumping. He swallowed through his dry mouth and tried to formulate exactly what to say that might bring her out of her war-torn reverie.

Riza's chest was heaving and her hand grasped wildly behind her back. Ed knew exactly what for; it was her basic instinct.

Ed let go of Mustang immediately. He fell like a stone to the floor and hit it with a resounding thud.

Riza stumbled to her knees at once and scrabbled herself to his side. She leant over his sitting form, her blonde hair cascading over his ebony locks. The world did not exist.

"Sir," she murmured. He looked up at her blankly, his dark eyes heavy. Her burned fingers quivered over his swollen cheek, and Ed was sure, to her, it was a battle wound she was seeing. Roy's own hand flinched, but didn't move.

"Hawkeye," he reacted.

Reality was slowly filtering back into Riza's awareness; her face was hardening, her posture tightening and her hands steadying, but primal instinct was still controlling her.

She carefully lifted Mustang to his feet and clung to his side, both of her arms around him: securing him; supporting him. She shielded him from the family as realization of where they were slowly illuminated her thoughts. She awkwardly glanced over her shoulder and Ed thought she couldn't look more helpless.

She spoke no words because she had none; no explanation; no comprehension of how to apologize.

Winry surprised herself as she lifted a hand and accepted Hawkeye's lack of _everything _with a simple gesture. She waved her hand forwards and she could see the gratitude swimming in Hawkeye's eyes.

She staggered forward with her General and led him towards the stairs; towards sanctuary. Her head sank against his.

When they were out of sight, and Ed's chest had constricted even further, Winry swiped her palm across Ed's cheek. It stung like the glare in her eyes.

"Is that how you want your children to see you?" She asked simply, words cold and hard.

Ed felt grief and shame welling up in the pit of his stomach; emotional exhaustion burning away at his strength. His mind was so heavily clouded with his childhood image and perception of his own father, then the Colonel and the Lieutenant, that he could barely feel the tears sting at the back of his eyes.

x

For the second time in a few hours Ed rested on top of his bed, staring at the wall ahead of him. His heart weighed down in his chest as he waited for his wife to return.

She did; opening the door quietly, her eyes still like ice. She said nothing to him; in truth she didn't know what to say. The words she had to say to her husband hurt her too; the look in his eyes had wounded her horribly.

She padded over to their wardrobe and opened its doors.

"You're still upset." Her voice was biting as she stated the obvious.

Ed was quiet for a moment before uttering, "Yeah, no kidding."

Winry pulled out one of her husband's shirts from the wardrobe. She sighed deeply and turned around to look at him. His eyes were weak; his fingers knotted together. He was so lost, ashamed and upset that Winry felt her anger crumbling and leaving only deep upset behind.

She discarded all of her clothes and pulled on the oversized shirt. Winry saw the traces of a smile in his gaze; he loved her in his shirts, especially when she was pregnant.

Winry crawled on top of the bed and knelt in front of Ed, noting his fingers that were still tangled together.

"Oh, Ed..." she chided quietly.

Winry gently pulled his hands apart and she carefully nestled herself in the crook of his arm, snuggling against his side and letting his chin rest on the crown of her head.

"I'm sorry that I had to be so hard on you..." Winry distracted herself with one of her husband's large hands. "But you have to understand; you were frightening. You aren't that sixteen year old boy anymore, Ed. You don't constantly have to fight."

Ed's sigh brushed atop of her head and fluttered her hair. He moved his other hand and rested it on Winry's belly.

"I know... I'm sorry."

Winry smiled quietly and she carefully removed Ed's hand from her stomach, hitched up the large shirt to her ribcage, and settled his hand back where it originally was, but now there was nothing between him and their daughter but skin. She laid her hand on top of his and rubbed her thumb into his knuckle; all had been forgiven.

Winry waited for a few moments and enjoyed the stillness. She seemed to sink more deeply into Ed's side now, and his arm enclosed around shoulders.

"You know what I'm going to ask you now, don't you?" She asked quietly waiting for his inevitable reaction. Sure enough, within moments his arm had dropped from around her shoulders and his body had stiffened slightly.

"I already told you why," he argued weakly.

Winry turned around and looked at him disbelievingly.

"You told me why you were upset _then_. Ed, I'm not stupid. I can see there is a lot more you aren't telling me."

Ed looked away and Winry expelled a breath. She gently ran her hand across his jaw which caused him to look back at her.

"Why don't you ever tell me anything." It was more of a musing than a question.

Ed was still for a few moments, his face giving away nothing that he was feeling. His mind seemed to be churning with thoughts. Eventually, he spoke.

"I think I understand why you don't get it." Ed tentatively removed Winry's hand from his cheek and enclosed it in his free hand. He was silent for a number of seconds as he tried to formulate what he wanted to say next.

"You've never... _seen _them, have you?" Ed asked carefully. Winry's brow furrowed as she settled back into the crook of Ed's arm against the pillows.

"Well, I've only ever seen Mister Mustang and Miss Riza back in Risembool when we were eleven, and then I saw them once when you and I went back to Central after the Promised Day and you wanted to visit them." She looked back up at Ed. "If that's what you're asking."

Ed's eyes closed and peace seemed to descend across his face. "I see," he said quietly. "That's why you don't understand." Winry looked up at him questioningly. "You haven't seen them, that's why you don't."

Winry felt irritation ticking away at the front of her mind and she frowned. She forced Ed to look at her.

"Then make me understand," she told him simply. "Explain it to me. Let me understand why you're upset, Ed."

Ed looked away briefly and Winry grazed her thumb across his hand on her belly again. His eyes flickered back to her and Winry noticed that he was beginning to look like that sixteen year old boy again.

Ed took in a deep breath. "Okay," he agreed. He carefully settled back against the pillows and drew Winry to him again; holding her close.

Winry let him have a moment of silence as she soothed his right hand with the continual stroking of her thumb. It always calmed him down considerably. Winry supposed it had to do with the fact that his right arm was the restored one, and he relished in the feel of any touch delivered to it.

"I don't know where to start... _How _to start," Ed admitted finally.

"You have to try," Winry responded plainly. She wouldn't let him avoid this any longer.

Ed nodded his head softly, secured his hold around Winry, brought her even closer, and tried to explain.

He slowly recounted everything he had seen and heard that related to General Mustang and his aide.

He spoke of their past in the Hawkeye household and the war which Ed knew directly from Riza's words. He told his wife the pact that Mustang and Hawkeye had made in order to better the country and pay for their sins.

He retold what he had heard from Al; that Riza had lost all will to live at the thought that Mustang had died, and then Mustang's return and the blind rage in his eyes that Al had seen. He told Winry every gritty detail that Al had shared. Goosebumps prickled along his arms.

He told her of how Bradley had taken her hostage and the pure fear and anger he had seen in Roy's eyes when Ed was told. Winry's body was still.

He told his wife about Mustang's reunion with his aide on the Promised Day.

And then Ed took a deep breath before explaining what he had seen with his very eyes: the indescribable fury as Roy came face to face with Envy; the look of fright on Hawkeye's face. The madness that consumed Roy until Riza was forced to pull her own gun on him. Ed's throat grew sore as he recited, word for word, what Riza had said to Mustang. He even described how Roy wailed at the very prospect of Riza's death as he expelled his fire, and how they had collapsed to the floor together.

Ed then, quietly, retold what May had heard while she was in the vents and what she had witnessed for herself. Mustang's complete loss of self and sanity as Riza bled to death; the moment they shared after May had managed to save Riza's life; and her blind obsession to find Mustang after he disappeared. And then, how she had clung to him when he had returned, blind.

And by the time he was done, Winry was crying.

x

They hadn't spoken a word.

Riza sat at the edge of the double bed and covered her hand with the other and closed her eyes. She was intimately aware of Roy and where he sat next to her. It was so quiet that she could hear him breathing. It was heavy.

Her brows quivered as she tried to make sense of things. She didn't even know where to begin. They had never gone through something like this and then been in such close contact afterwards. There really is nowhere to hide; nothing to hide behind; no excuses; no new ways to ignore it.

Riza's eyes opened in alarm when Roy's tentative fingers lifted up her one hand to reveal her other. The gentility of his touch was shattering her barriers. His fingers trembled as they lifted up the hand. His thumb ran across the expanse of her two vividly pink fingers. She wanted to pull them away, but she knew it will break him.

"I burnt you," he moaned ever so quietly.

Riza's breath throbbed in her lungs as she held it. Roy's inky eyes were unmoving as they rested on her angry pink burns. All his walls were down; he didn't have a single barrier left to protect himself. It was more than frightening. This was when everything could fall to pieces. There was nothing left to him but his grief and his _feelings_.

"I don't blame you." She wished her words were crisp and clear. They were raspy and choked her throat.

His head nodded absentmindedly but his eyes did not move. He enclosed her burnt fingers in his hands and the onyx pools of his eyes were hidden behind his pitch locks as his head dropped.

She could feel his heartbeat through his skin, and he could feel her small hand in his. They were in the most danger here.

Riza carefully slipped her hand out of his and tried to ignore how he looked up at her as she departed his side. She was trying to bring them back into a semblance of normalcy.

She walked up to the wardrobe and pulled out her sleeping clothes with shaky fingers; she no longer cared about trivial things.

Riza only realized her true error when her blouse was on the floor and crumpled under his boot.

Her fingers tensed into the fabric in her hands as his fingertips fluttered across her shoulder blade. She didn't dare breathe when his quivering fingers unhooked the white cotton that obstructed his view.

His touch breathed across her skin; across the ink; like it had those so many years ago; when she would not have believed that her choice would have ended up this way.

His fingers stilled on the marbled flesh; her burns. She could hear that he was trying to speak, but he could not.

"I asked you to," she uttered so softly, but she knew he could hear her. He would have heard her even if she had said no words at all.

She felt the fragile weight on her shoulder and she could feel the quivering of his forehead and the brush of his hair against her skin.

"I know," he breathed.

His fingers were falling from the burn and trailing down her spine, but he could not make them leave her skin. They settled in the lip of her lower back.

"I don't blame you for it." Her barriers were broken and she found a small miracle in the fact that they weren't clinging to each other. Her eyes shut tightly and her head fell back and rested on the crown of his.

A heavy and trembling breath washed over her scar and slid down the expanse of her skin. No words follow, they were stuck in his throat, but she didn't need them.

"I know," she breathed.

She could see them, a day from now, on the train back to East City; a foot apart and trying not to clip each other's hands as they steadied themselves against the carriage's rocking. But they were tragic, and had long since learned how to ignore and forget those moments of breath on skin.

* * *

_And if it all falls down,_

_Nothing else matters._

_

* * *

A/N: The credit for the last paragraph goes to mebh, because it was too early (in the morning) for me to rework it. I only altered it slightly.  
_


	3. Afraid

_A/N: SUPRISE!_

_I know right? It's been a year and here I am, bringing my sorry ass back to this story. I'm sure I don't have to apologize for the wait because I'm sure everyone knows how sorry I must be feeling. And I do._

_Let me just be clear that this story is no longer a threeshot - **which means that it is not finished yet **- and instead will be a fourshot. The reason being is because after considering how long the final chapter would be I decided to split it up into two parts. I also feel really guilty about not updating in such a long time so I decided to release what I've written already as the third chapter and finish the fourth chapter after I have received some fresh inspiration and improved my writing._

_To be hoenst, I'm really not impressed with this chapter. Mostly because before I wrote it I hadn't written in about a year so my abilty to write has decreased _a lot. _I'm trying to improve and reach my previous standard but it's proving to be really difficult. Please excuse this sub-par chapter and hope that my next one is back to my usual standard, or maybe even better._

_Having said all of this, I hope you can still enjoy this chapter, even though it's shorter and 'weaker' than its predicessors. I also apologize for any errors as I no longer have a beta.  
_

* * *

**In Pursuit of Reason**

_3._

_Afraid_

* * *

_Her eyes burn and she tells herself it's the sand. She frantically scrubs the back of her blood smeared hand against them._

"_Put your weapon down." Her voice trembles terribly. _

_She has been ordered to kill him. It is what she is here for, in this god-forsaken desert. _

_Executive Order Number 3066. _

_His eyes are like churning blood, surging with an uncontrollable rage. His dark lips are curled into a snarl and scars litter his young face._

_He can't be more than fifteen. _

_She keeps her gun steady while her other hand quivers. _

"_Put your weapon down." She orders again._

_He glares at her and the blade glints in the scorching overhead sun._

_He has begun to speak: foreign words spilling out of his mouth. It is a prayer to Ishvalla. _

_She begins to crack at the seams._

"Please_ just put down your weapon! I'll let you go – I don't want -"_

_With his prayer finished he lunges. Her body crushes into the broken jagged ground and the knife bites into her arm. She shrieks and her finger slips._

_The explosion is so loud her ears are ringing and her eyes close on instinct. When they reopen all she can see is thick red mist and dead eyes. _

x

Riza felt a hand on her face and thought it was blood.

Breath rushed into her lungs and her eyes tear open; shifting the image from a gaping maw in the back of a child's skull into that of a curtain of hair and dark eyes.

Riza pushes at the hand and wipes her palms across her face, expecting them to come back streaked with red.

"Hawkeye." He says it so softly that she stops. She breathes and focuses and listens. "You're safe." It is Roy.

Her air stutters out of her lungs and she quickly runs her fingers over her neck until she feels the marbled flesh.

She is safe; free from her nightmares. For now.

Riza breathes in again, trying to stabilise her heart. Her eyes sink into his.

His eyes catch the dawn light; and at this hour the boundaries are blurred.

"Ishval?" He asks softly, running a hand over her cheek; an effort to calm her, "The kid?" He asks even more quietly.

"Yes." Her voice is trapped in her throat and barely makes it past her lips.

He sighs. She watches him, above her, and how his chest expands with his new breath. After all these years the breadth of his shoulders still surprises her. She still remembers the young Roy Mustang that had walked through her father's house.

The memory was ruined by the scarred palm against her cheek and the marbled flesh of his abdomen against her knee.

He was too close, she realises all too late.

His palm glides along her throat.

"I wish I had never gone to your father."

She sucks in a breath and holds it. The dim light of the dawn reflects in his inky eyes. His fingertips scrape across her collarbone and she shivers.

"We aren't going to talk about this, sir." She speaks in a rush and makes a move to get up. He stops her with his palm over her heart.

"No, Riza."

Her throat closes up and the air rushes out of her at the soft utterance of her name. He had said it as if he had every day of his life. Her heart beats erratically and she knows he can feel the flutter against his fingers.

She stares up at him in disbelief, all dark hair, pitch eyes, broad shoulders, scars and pale skin and wonders, for the shortest second, how she must look to him.

"Not my captain, just for a second." Riza's heartbeat spikes.

His eyes are sunken and he is serious. She can see the bags under his eyes and the faintest crease in his forehead. He is tired, oh so tired, and he just can't handle _this _anymore. He can't handle _them _anymore and he's tired, tired, _tired_. He's reached the end of the line that she thought would be infinite.

Her heart is pounding under his fingers because she's _terrified_.

He's lost his control.

Almost immediately Hawkeye pushes him off and he falls to the side of her, sinking the bed so that she rolls into him; chest to chest, skin to skin. He inhales sharply. She jerks back as if she's been shocked.

She stumbles off the bed and back into the door, the handle stabbing in between her shoulder blades.

He is cool like cracked ice as he looks at her, shivering in her flimsy strapped top and scruffy shorts against the door. Riza, as she takes in the sight of her passive and beautiful commander, wonders if she has any affect on him whatsoever. Because her heart is hammering under her skin and his face is so smooth and impassive.

"But I am your captain." She knows how weak the excuse is but she can do nothing else.

Anguish washes over his face and he slumps forward; face into his open palms. "I know." His voice is so marred by defeat and shame that she wants to comfort him, but she doesn't trust herself around him now. "I know that..."

And suddenly he's up, eyes awash with anger and frustration, like a wild animal, caged and pawing desperately at the bars trying to be freed.

"But I'm tired!" He's shouting at her. He has never shouted at her, only once, when he was unravelling with worry and frustration. "And this? And _this_?" He doesn't have the words. He's never had them. "_This _is too cruel. I'm exhausted!"

Riza shivers under his intense gaze. He has finally confronted, after all these many years, what has been hiding behind the curtain of glass between them and she isn't ready. She has never been ready; especially not for _this_. Not when he's shouting at her and she can't escape and _she's not dying. _It was never supposed to be this way.

She swallows thickly. "Sir..."

"I'm exhausted from this. _Don't you want this?_"

The second the words had left his mouth he regretted them.

Her face is stricken and her body is still.

"Hawke-" He tries to apologise.

"How could you?" she asks numbly, staring right into the depths of his eyes. "How could you even ask-" She can't even finish her sentence due to disbelief.

He tries to calm her, breaking more of their boundaries by putting his hands on her arms. "Riza, I-"

Her name sets her off and she pushes his hands away, eyes alight with hurt. "You _trusted _me because you don't trust yourself!" She can't believe that after all the years they had been together they were actually speaking about the indescribable bond between them. She can't believe what they are actually saying. "How could you think – _even for a second that _-"

She stops short. She can't bring herself to say it. Silence engulfs them.

This was all too much to handle.

She swallows thickly, tears threaten to spill from her eyes but she holds them in. She can't cry, she doesn't cry. She won't cry because she knows how deeply it will unsettle Roy.

"I should go," Riza murmurs weakly, crossing her arms; closing herself off. "Winry might be up... and I'm sure I could help her with something."

They both know it's just turned daybreak and Winry wouldn't even be awake.

Roy's hand slides onto Riza's forearm. "Riza..."

"_Sir_," she responds coarsely. Roy searches the depth of her eyes and he can easily see her discomfort and anger. He sighs deeply, his lungs expanding to their full capacity, before releasing the breath slowly through his nose. His hand slips from her arm with all the sorrow of a breaking heart.

"Alright." He omits and steps away from her, allowing her the space she wants. He steps further back and sits down slowly at the edge of the bed and runs his hand through his messy hair. His hand sinks to his face and he rests it within his palm.

Riza slowly opens the door; the breeze from outside making her shiver. Her eyes still burn with unshed tears and she lifts her face to the ceiling to rid herself of them. After a moment she steps through the doorway and turns, fingers on the handle.

If her heart was whole to begin with it would have broken at the sight of him. He sits, crouched over, head sinking further into his open hands. She can't shift the unsettled feeling in her gut and she can't bring herself to shut the door on him.

Riza takes a deep breath, holding it for as long as she can before she dares to speak.

At the sound of expelled breath Roy looks up from his hands and straight into her eyes questioningly.

Riza looks away for a mere moment, seemingly indecisive of what she was about to say. Her voice is soft.

"How could you ever think that I don't want you."

Then, she leaves; door open ajar so all he can see is her retreating figure.

x

Winry had been up the whole night.

The previous night had been unforgiving both physically and mentally. She had cried into Ed's chest for what seemed like hours only to be able to stop when her throat physically _hurt _from overexertion. Throughout her emotional breakdown Ed had peppered the crown of her head with kisses in an effort to sooth her.

Once Winry could formulate words she had insisted that they made love. Ed, who could see the profound sadness and _guilt _in his wife's eyes, agreed without hesitation.

He was the most tender he had ever been Winry since their fumbling first time all those years ago; he would never admit it, but he too felt the emotional scars. He was suffering just like Winry.

Afterwards Ed had fallen asleep curled around his wife, his hand splayed across her naked enlarged belly.

Winry had passed the hours simply watching him sleep.

Now, at dawn, she lays on her back staring at the frosty light against the ceiling; alone with her horrible thoughts.

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffs, the cool morning air flooding her lungs. Winry knows that her pregnancy has a lot to do with her inability to stop crying, but it doesn't make her feel any less _shit_.

Another tear rolls off her chin and Winry takes that as her cue to get up and wash her face. She carefully slips herself from Ed's warm embrace and softly makes her way to the master-bathroom.

Winry inspects herself in the mirror and sighs unhappily; her eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks puffy. She turns on the tap and cups water into her hands before splashing the frigid water onto her face. She blindly grabs for the hand towel and brings it to eyes. She dabs the towel against her skin until she feels sufficiently refreshed.

Winry places the towel in the sink and leans against the counter, staring at herself in the mirror; staring into her own eyes; seeing the last vestiges of sadness hiding within their blue depths. Absentmindedly her hand drifts to her belly and she cradles the swell.

Her daughter kicks against her hand and Winry squeaks before looking down, seeing sporadic movements in her stomach. Winry smiles warmly and pokes back gently. The baby reacts and kicks back.

Winry giggles softly and walks back into her bedroom. She looks over to Ed, sprawled haphazardly across the mattress, and sighs affectionately. It is a pity he's missing this; Winry knows how much he loves interacting with their unborn daughter. She will always remember the way his eyes light up.

Winry opens her cupboard and pulls out another one of Ed's oversized shirts and a pair of underwear. She hastily puts them on and gently tiptoes her way past her snoring husband and to the door. She makes sure to open and close the bedroom door as quietly as possible. She doesn't want to wake up her family or her guests.

She crosses the landing silently, making sure to avoid the creaky floorboards and makes her way down the stairs.

It is passed daybreak by now and Winry knows she couldn't stay in bed any longer. She has to busy herself with something; so she is going to start her preparations for a big breakfast. After last night a feast is going to be needed. Although she doubts a feast will fix anything.

At the foot of the stairs, Winry hears the unmistakable sound of crying.

Winry looks up from the floorboards to the bench in the hallway.

There is Riza, bathed in morning light, crumpled against the armrest; hands to her face. Crying.

She looks completely different to the image Winry has held of her in her heart of hearts. She is hunched up, elbows on her knees, leaning against the armrest for support and shivering with each new sob. Her fingers thread into the hair on her scalp and the heels of her palms dig into her eyes. She looks so small and broken.

Winry realises that she must have gasped or made a noise when she descended because Riza immediately drops her hands and looks straight to Winry.

In that one moment, when Riza's overflowing eyes look deep into Winry's, Winry – a woman who had waited, lovesick, on her partner for years – finally understands the depth of Riza's anguish.

"Oh! Winry..." Riza hurriedly wipes eyes; bringing up her mask once again. "Don't worry – this is nothing – I just -"

"It's about Roy, isn't it?" Winry interrupts softly. Her blue eyes express the degree of her worry with ease.

Riza sniffs weakly. "No..." She attempts looking away, wiping at her eyes again. "It's not... Roy - "

At the utterance of his name – the sound of her own voice saying it – Riza freezes. Then she dissolves into tears, whimpering uncontrollably into her hands.

"Oh, _Riza_..." Winry slides in next to the older woman and wraps Riza in her arms, bringing her to her chest.

Riza completely caves and collapses against Winry, her small calloused hands digging into her tear-stained cheeks. Her body shakes feebly from each new sob. Winry hugs her tight and rests her chin on the crown of her golden blonde head. She calms her with nonsensical noises and words and runs her hands up and down Riza's trembling back. Riza nuzzles her face into Winry's neck and her arms timidly wrap around the younger woman's waist.

Winry can feel Riza's tears against her neck and the coldness of Riza's skin. She must have been sitting out here for a while. That fact alone causes Winry to tighten her arms around Riza and stroke the back of her head soothingly.

Winry is running on maternal instinct, she knows that much. She's in a state of shock, running on what feels right, rather than what her mind is telling her to do. In truth she doesn't know what to do. Winry had never thought, even for a second, that one day the strong Captain Hawkeye would be in her arms crying herself into submission.

Although seemingly inconsolable, Riza begins to become quieter with every caress Winry gave her back. Eventually she was silent except for a few hiccups she failed to contain. Winry continued to hold her comfortingly, regardless.

"Are you alright now, Riza?" Winry asks her softly. She can feel Riza nod her head against her neck before she pulls away uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at Winry. She knows there is no way she can put up her mask again around her; not after this.

"Yes," Riza replies shakily. She wipes at her cheeks rubs away the tear tracks; as if they were never there – Winry will be the only one to know. "I'm..." She sighs and looks into Winry's gentle eyes; vulnerable. "I'm sorry, Winry."

Winry shakes her head. "Really now, Riza, why are you apologising?" Winry softly places her hand on Riza's knee. "You don't have to hide how you feel."

What she said must have hit home because Riza's eyes widens and there is something _inexpressible _there that Winry wishes that she could grasp.

"I suppose not..." Riza trails off and looks outside through the window across the room. She's probably looking at the silhouette of the hills, Winry muses. They look very beautiful in the mornings.

They sit in somewhat comfortable silence for a minute or two. Then:

"Aren't you going to ask why?" Riza asks calmly, looking away from the window and into Winry's eyes; her own eyes are guarded. She has prepared herself for the worst.

Winry looks at her questioningly; tilting her head to the side; eyebrows furrowed.

"Why would I ask you that?" Winry asks, genuinely confused. She notes the surprise on Riza's face. Winry smiles at her warmly; her eyes are a window to her heart. "If you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."

Riza looks on at Winry's unguarded smile in shock. She hadn't expected the wife of Edward to be so... understanding. She is only in her early twenties and yet was so mature and kind. She is a _mother _and she cares for Riza as she must care for her own family. Riza could feel a second wave of tears building up, but she keeps them down.

"You really are an amazing woman, Winry," Riza remarks placing her hand affectionately on top of Winry's. She means every single word from the bottom of her heart.

Winry feels a blush flood her cheeks.

"U-U-Uh, I don't know what to - " She is cut short by her own yelp.

"Winry?" Riza asks, alarmed.

"No – No – It's fine," Winry assures the soldier. "It's just Caitlyn. She's still kicking up a storm."

"Caitlyn?"

Winry smiles apologetically and gestures to her stomach. "Sorry, it's what I call the baby. Just don't tell Ed." She winks at Riza. "He doesn't know yet."

"I'm sure Edward wouldn't have a problem with the name Caitlyn."

Winry laughs. "No, it's not like that. I just want to see what other stupid names he can come up with first." Winry sighs, placing a hand on her belly. "Seriously, he's come up with some _really _bad ones." Riza finds herself laughing; that sounds just like Ed.

Riza's laughing fades when Winry makes several groans of discomfort.

"Winry, are you okay?" Riza asks worriedly as she leans closer.

"I'm fine, honestly," Winry assures her, laying her other hand on Riza's bare knee. "Caitlyn just kicks really hard." Suddenly, Winry gropes for Riza's hand. "Here, feel."

Riza's muscles seize the moment her palm comes into contact with the flutter of movement underneath Winry's skin. Her eyes widen and her breath catches in her throat. Winry can feel the slightest tremor in Riza's hand.

"Riza?" Winry asks gently, trying not to spook the older woman.

Her eyes are unfocused and Winry can tell in a heartbeat that Riza is lost within her own mind. Whether it's within a memory or in a consuming thought, Winry isn't sure. She only knows that Riza is stiff and her eyes are locked on her hand atop of Winry's belly. A breath shudders through her.

Then another.

"Riza?" Winry rubs her thumb across Riza's knuckles, attempting to wake her.

Riza's body jolts; a tear drips from her bottom lashes. Her eyes lift to Winry's.

Winry doesn't allow a moment for Riza to explain herself; Winry had seen that look of regretful sadness in the eyes of too many people in her life: from the broken determination of Ed when he was just a child to the frightened, heartbroken gaze of her parents; the last expression they ever gave her.

"Is this your first time feeling this?" Winry asks kindly, smiling to cover up the pains of sadness in her heart. She carefully guides Riza's hand to the other side of her stomach.

"No, I -" The voice Riza found is momentarily lost when Caitlyn kicks against her hand. She looks down in wonder. "Gracia made me feel her stomach a few times..." her voice trails off as her hand moves to follow the baby's kicks.

Winry's sure that she is glowing the way her mother and even Gracia had. Winry almost felt embarrassed.

"It's pretty amazing right?" Winry giggles at a particular kick. "I mean pregnancy."

Riza nods and watches Caitlyn kick against her fingertips. "If it didn't happen to many women all over the world every day I wouldn't believe it. To think we almost know so much and we can't even fathom an everyday occurrence like this."

"Yeah," Winry laughs. "It drives Ed crazy sometimes." She watched Riza gently prod at her stomach in fascination, hoping for a reaction from the baby. Winry felt hopelessly maternal.

The words slip from her lips before she realises the harm.

"Have you ever thought of having kids?"

Silence only followed.

Winry feels her body go stiff as she watches Riza's hand slowly retract from her stomach. Hurt and sadness flick over the older woman's face before that horrible, hard facade washes over and leaves her face blank. Riza places her hands in her lap and her body posture stiffens.

Winry tries to say something, anything, but she has no words. Her stomach drops.

Riza stares at the wall opposite them and doesn't move at all.

A wave of emotion sweeps through Winry, an emotion that she cannot explain. She feels frustration and shame that she has never felt before; it's as if her disappointment from causing Riza to push her away is a physical wound.

It's in that broken and still moment that Winry realises that Riza was more than a woman who she admired, but instead that of a figure of an older sister... or even possibly a mother.

It only makes Riza's sudden rejection of her all the more gut-wrenching.

Caitlyn kicks in her belly, protesting the loss of attention, and it drives Winry to try and mend the situation as best she can.

But before she can say a single word Riza turns to her and looks straight into her eyes. The blood in Winry's veins might as well have frozen because her body just goes cold at the emotion and darkness in Riza's eyes.

"A person like me doesn't deserve to have children."

The flatness in Riza's voice and the self-loathing in her eyes force the air out of Winry's lungs and she has to sit back and regain her breath.

The rest of the moments go by in a blur as Riza hastily tries to assist Winry, obviously thinking she in some kind of pain or discomfort due to her pregnancy and completely oblivious to the fact that it was she who caused this reaction, but Winry is still busy focusing on her irregular and pained heartbeat. Her thoughts are churning like tempest seas, from horror to desperate sadness.

And Winry doesn't really know which is worse: that Riza is fussing over _her_ and trying to help _her_. That Riza is the only woman Winry knows who truly deserves happiness, deserves a family.

Or that Winry knows that she saw, for the merest fleeting moment before her eyes had darkened, that Riza _had _thought about children. Only to be muffled and caged by her guilt a second later.

* * *

_A/N: Before I forget - the encouragement to publish this goes to _**mebh**. _She has no idea I'm saying this but I got the encouragement after reading her outstanding fifth chapter of _Here Dead We Lie. _Do yourselves a favour people and check it out!_


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